AeraReview

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Does it soar or crash?

By Levi Buchanan

Aera is a gorgeous side-scrolling flying game that combines the pop off an aerial stunt show with the promise of dogfighting of Crimson Skies. It delivers on neither. Thanks to tilt controls that are grossly over-sensitive, Aera will have you muttering paint-peeling language within minutes. It's entirely too bad that the game sputters due to this sole reason, because if your plane was actually controllable without the steady hands of a robot surgeon, Aera would have been an easy homerun.

I appreciate the direction iChromo took with Aera. Instead of a 3D flight sim, your aircraft flies along a 2D plane in 3D space. Eliminating the need to worry about nailing targets and shooting down enemies in 3D space should have made Aera instantly accessible. The missions are not too long and nicely varied in the 10-stage campaign. You have a handful of races through minefields, collection runs where you pick up floating tokens, and some dogfights against rival planes. As you complete portions of the campaign, you unlock extra areas and planes to use in the game's free flight mode.

Free flight mode should be your first stop if you dare the download. Here you can attempt to get used to the game's finicky controls. Tilting the device left and right controls climbing and dives. A line of arrows in front of your plane shows you the flight path for the next few seconds, but maintaining it is a serious pain. You must avoid stalling out in steep climbs and watch out for loops that smash your plane either into the ground or into a mine. Overcorrecting is a real problem – the game draws no quarter as you jiggle and fidget with a flight path through treacherous skies. Tilting the device toward you rolls the plane, which is a good maneuver for making a clean(-ish) 180-degree turn in midair, but make sure you either perform the full roll or can mentally adjust how to tilt control the plane because while upside-down, everything is effectively in reverse.

Nice wings.

I messed with the sensitivity settings in hopes of making Aera make accessible but just could not find an adequate setting to make my plane feel like I had complete control over it. There always felt like a degree of chance, especially during collection missions. Because of this, the dogfights are by far my favorite missions in the game because you do not require total precision to do well in them. Tapping the right side of the screen sprays the skies with machinegun fire, but you have two on-screen buttons that release floating mines or homing missiles.

Aera uses a rewind system when you crash to roll the game back a few seconds before the explosion. This is a good system instead of tossing your plane back to an arbitrary checkpoint or just starting the entire mission over. Also good: in addition to the main campaign and free flight modes, there is local Wi-Fi multiplayer dogfighting matches and capture the flag-type missions.

And then there's Aera's undisputable good looks. Really, this is a very handsome title with stunning backdrops and great plane models. I wish the game could marry its attractiveness and good dogfighting with better controls.

Aera was reviewed with version 1.0.

The Verdict

Right now, Aera is difficult to play. An update could solve these problems by tightening up the tilt controls and giving the player a touch option like a virtual stick. But until then, I cannot recommend the game. It&#Array;s just too frustrating to control in even one of the game&#Array;s easier missions. That&#Array;s unfortunate, since the concept is great and the visuals are stunning.